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There was a time when I grinded the SCG Open Series more than most, and if not for a misconception about when the year ends I would have been qualified for every Invitational. These days I don't make it much further than Minneapolis for Opens, but somewhere along the line I accrued enough open points to earn myself an Invitational qualification.
Previously, my Invitational experiences consisted of getting a lot of free wins in Legacy and playing something terrible and getting smashed in Standard. The times they are-a-changin' though, and the Columbus Invitational is Standard and Modern.
Eep.
In a world of PPTQs it makes a ton of sense to showcase the formats that people are grinding every weekend. This is bad for Ryan Overturf, but I think it's good for Magic. You win some, you lose some. It is lucky for me that this is happening at the first point in a long time where I've felt good about my ability to succeed in the Standard environment.
With Treasure Cruise banned in Modern, I haven't put the work into figuring out what I should be playing. My default is to play Delver of Secrets // Delver of Secrets regardless of how terrible a decision it is, and I don't see a compelling reason to not stay the course considering how much work is involved with trying to put a Modern deck together.
Back in February I postulated that Tasigur, the Golden Fang was an extremely powerful tool for Modern Delver decks. Weeks after writing that, Richard Nguyen took 21st at an SCG Open with a variant of the deck. Currently, you can expect to see a couple Grixis Delver decks cash any given Modern Daily Event. The deck is hardly dominant, but it's real.
A couple weeks ago I physically sleeved the deck up for the first time to battle in a TCGPlayer event. Figuring out the numbers for the deck is tough, as it feels like you're being pushed towards playing too many creatures and access to Exterminate! changes the value of the various counterspells in the deck. I wasn't sure how well I was walking the tightrope, but this is the list that I registered:
Grixis Delver
The deck performed admirably in the swiss portion of the tournament, and I 3-0-2'd my way into the Top 8 after beating up on Temur Delver and a couple Abzan decks. The Exterminate!s made the deck so much stronger in a proactive role, and the tension between casting a threat and leaving up countermagic was much lower than it ever was with Izzet Delver. Tasigur was also great at enabling the deck to compete in the late game against Abzan, just as I had anticipated.
Then in the Top 8 of the tournament I played a mirror match. Well, it was mostly a mirror except for one crucial difference. I felt like I had a better handle on the matchup than my opponent, and most of the early exchanges between us looked to be building up in my favor, but then my opponent completely wrecked me with a piece of technology that I had eschewed.
In a mirror based on attrition, killing one my guys plus Raise Dead is obscene. Then he cast it again with Snapcaster Mage... There was no way I was ever winning a game when this card was in his deck and not in mine. Lesson learned.
I had seen Kolaghan's Command in lists from MTGO before, but I dismissed it because I was only looking for things that made the deck better against Abzan. The degree to which Kolaghan's Command makes you better against any deck that tries to kill your creatures and has anything that dies when you deal two damage to it and/or has any artifacts makes up for the fact that it's only marginal against Abzan.
On the topic of Kolaghan's Command, the card is currently ticking down in value, though long-term I see it proving to be a Modern staple. Pay attention to the price on this one. There's an opportunity to make some money here if you can get in at the floor. Some copies can be had for right around $1, and I love this card at ~$0.50.
The other takeaway from this tournament is that Young Pyromancer just kind of sucks now. He was great with Treasure Cruise, but now he's just the guy that your opponent waits to Electrolyze. The upside of the card has diminished severely and while the downside hasn't increased, it wasn't true that Young Pyromancer was great before Treasure Cruise, and none of the new cards are direct contributors to Pyro's power.
Seeing as I already felt that I was playing too many creatures, I don't much mind cutting Young Pyromancer. With Young Pyromancer on the out, you have to wonder if this deck actually wants Gitaxian Probe. It's a decent delve enabler, but it's still the card that I board out against everybody. Needing to find untapped duals for three colors of mana also really hurts Probe.
If we cut Pyro and Probe, that leaves us with a lot of space to fill. I like Kolaghan's Command as a two-of, so that's our first addition. The more Commands, the more we care about our graveyard being stocked. Cutting Probe also leaves a bit of a cantrip void, so maxing out on Thought Scour is a no-brainer.
An extra land makes sense when we are now actively excited about a five-mana play (Command + Snapcaster) and also might just be needed without Probe to help us draw lands for "free". Figuring out the exact removal/counter configuration isn't an exact science, and for now I like trying the full four Exterminate! and three Spell Snare.
The last slot should likely be occupied by a threat. Vendilion Clique comes to mind, but it mostly has the same problems as Young Pyromancer. It would be nice to be able to run four Tasigur, but instead we'll need to play the next best thing. Or rather, something that's pretty good, but bears the appearance of a steaming turd.
That's going to leave us with the following configuration:
Grixis Delver
Upon reviewing this list, Delver of Secrets // Delver of Secrets actually looks somewhat out of place. It's so much worse than our other creatures, but ultimately it's a necessary concession to the Modern format. We simply need Delver to clock combo and Tron opponents before they can overpower us, even if it means that we give up some value against Electrolyze.
With the Invitational coming up and the Planeswalker Points year coming to an end, I'll be jamming a ton of games with Grixis Delver throughout May. I'll be sure to write about any new technology that I come up with here.
Thanks for reading.
-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter
lost to this deck yesterday in a daily, SB had the card he could overload to kill all my artifacts.
I should kill him before turn 5, but the other removal spells made that difficult. And it’s his only answer against my etched champion.
So if you want to win against affinity, I would play that card in SB for sure.
I played a sideboard Hurkyl’s Recall when I played Izzet (with and without T. Cruise) and played better than Vandalblast and also played better with Snapcaster Mage. It was only a one-of for that one matchup, and even when I didn’t draw it the matchup felt positive. I figured since Kolaghan’s Command is so great against Affinity that I don’t need the Recall anymore.
Champion, even when enabled, sucks if you don’t have a plating or Ravager to go with it. With Spell Snares and Snapcasters, it’s not hard to keep that on lock.
recall is good if you’re racing affinity (like merfolk does). in control, bouncing everything is not helping that much. I rarely have the feeling recall is breaking me. vandalblast breaks me.
Indeed, racing with etched champion goes faster with signal pest, master of etherium, cranial plating and/or arcbound ravager, but if you’re wasting all sources to answer these cards, I have time for the slow race. You can’t put much danger in play if you spend resources on holding off the other cards.
Don’t forget you’re taking much damage yourself from land + early race from affinity.
Don’t forget we have sideboard too ;). currently I play 4 spell pierce after side.
Did you miss the Delvers? I’m not a control deck.
I used to play this deck a ton a while back. One key component to the deck was always the Creeping Tar Pits. I think I played three and they were always an important factor to winning games. Additionally, be careful that you’re playing enough threats. It seems like if your opponent has a couple removal spells that you will fold to not being able to close the game.
I’ve been toying with the idea of cutting Delver, and if I did that I’d run Tar Pit. Coming into play tapped is VERY bad for this deck, though Tar Pit is great in controlling versions of Grixis.
The deck plays plenty of threats, and has a great burn plan. I’ve even been boarding Delver out against matchups like Burn, and it’s not a problem. I believe that you’re underestimating the value that Kolaghan’s Command adds in the threat department. It’s also very Relevant that only a handful of removal spells can kill Tasigur in the first place.
Great article. I ran Grixis delver at the modern states. Both SCG and TCG. I scrubbed out of the main tourneys but did manage to win a few win a boxes with this. I had command in my build and it is just amazing vs affinity/robots and that random 8 rack deck. Having main deck artifact kill is just great. I also dropped the pyro but not the probe. I went with the zombie fish and put in 4 angler. Probe just helps fuel that delve and I always want to know what my opp has in hand. Also muderous cut is great in it. As previous poster stated yeah you want that one of vandal blast. It’s to good vs robots not to include it.